Devil of the Deep by Falencia Jean-Francois

Author:Falencia Jean-Francois
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Connaissance Press

Nnenna had encouraged Pearl to move about the ship as she pleased, assuring her that the crew could be trusted to watch over her. Pearl had not been keen to accept her offer, but after two days of being cooped up in her cabin, alone with the guilt that had been gnawing at her insides, learning more about the Medusa became a welcome distraction. On the third morning of their journey, she threw off her sheets, rolled out of her berth, and finally left the cramped space.

She let the rumbling in her stomach guide her to the galley, first. The cook, a burly, bearded man with skin that was closer to the color of a fish’s belly than her own, who called himself Sven, stood at the large wall of metal and flames. Pearl could see an assortment of pans poking out from within it, belching steam that carried delicious smells to her nose. Sven spoke the land dweller language with a thick, lilting accent that made the foreign words even less decipherable and, whenever he spoke to her specifically, he gestured dramatically to help her understand.

The first time she had wandered into his domain, he had pointed to her and called her something that sounded like he had been clearing his throat. When she had stared at him with confusion, he had repeated the sounds, turning his hand into a fish swimming through invisible waters. She had understood immediately and smiled and he had smiled back at her and offered her a plate of food. This had become the custom between them.

“You hungry?” he asked her in his broken, accented land dweller tongue.

She had heard the phrase enough times to know what it meant and nodded vigorously. He pointed to a chair in the corner of the room, the only one, and bid her to sit. As she did so, he prepared her a breakfast plate. Pearl would never tire of eating cooked fish, of the way it flaked when she broke into its flesh with her spoon—a tool she had all but mastered since becoming a land dweller—and melted into salty goodness on her tongue. This meal also featured a mound of steaming, yellow stuff.

“Ehgg,” Sven said when he saw her examining the unfamiliar food. He tucked his thumbs under his armpits and flapped his bent arms as though they were wings. Then, he put his two hands together, one on top of the other, but left a rounded space in between them, as though for something small and delicate. Pearl still did not understand, but she ate a spoonful all the same.

When her plate was empty and her belly full, she set the dish on the floor next to the chair.

“Good?” he asked with his eyebrows raised.

Pearl nodded again, smiling this time to show her satisfaction.

“Good,” he said. “Now, you work.”

Before Pearl could ask, he tossed an apron in her direction. Then, he put a knife in her hands and set her in front of a large vat of brown stones.

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